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Getting the Campaign Itch – Early Draft of Campaign Rules

Howdy everyone. Severus here, and today I wanted to share with you my most recent creations. I have been feeling some hobby boredom lately. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing games with the guys, but I was just wanting something more out of it. I miss playing in the campaigns we used to do a few years ago. Then the obvious solution hit me, I should make my own campaign.

Let’s back up. I am a horrible story teller. I have never been interested in role playing or re-creating battles from previous fluff. I love setting up a scenario with a little fluff and then just letting it go and see how it evolves. So for me, running a campaign is more about designing a system that will let a story evolve. I was never terribly good at making a story and designing a series of missions to fit. So, with that in mind I decided to sit down and try to make a set of campaign rules that had a nice strong rule set that allowed for some interesting stories to evolve.

Here is what I have come up with. Feel free to leave me some feedback (keep in mind, my goal is to keep the system simple and straight forward). If you want to steal the idea and run with it, be my guest. My goal is to try to run this system with 4-6 guys and see how it hold up.

The following image represents the game board. It is 61 tiles, so it is a little larger than a set of planetary empires. You can use a large print out of this or whatever game board you have handy.

Legend:

X = Army Starting Space

3 = Tile worth 3 points instead of 1

5 = Tile worth 5 points instead of 1

Setup

Players select a primary faction and a secondary faction (secondary factions are optional). Examples of factions include Orks, Tau, Space Marines with the same chapter tactic, Farsight Enclave, ect. Players roll for priority (2d6, highest has priority, re-roll any ties). Players take turns, based on priority order, choosing starting tiles. Each player starts the game with 3 armies located in their starting tile. Starting tiles are always captured by there respective player. After starting tiles are selected, players begin round 1.

Rounds

Players roll for priority (2d6, highest has priority, re-roll any ties). Players take turns, based on priority order, moving a single army. Armies can move two tiles per turn. Any tile that has an army move through it or stop in it is automatically captured by that army. Armies stop moving as soon as they enter a tile captured by an enemy. Starting spaces can never be captured by an enemy army and enemy armies can not move through them.

If two opposing armies ever occupy the same tile, both armies are prevented from moving for the rest of the round. A battle must be fought to determine who will capture that tile. Battles are fought at the end of a round before points are scored. The winner stays in the tile and captures it. The loser is pushed back to the nearest friendly space (controlling player’s choice). No more than 2 armies can battle in a single space during a turn.

Once each player has finished moving one army, the process is repeated until all armies are moved. Players can elect to not move an army (pass) but if they do so they can not move any army for the rest of the round. Each army can only move once per round.

Player Interactions

Players are allowed to talk to other players during the movement of armies each round. Alliances and bribery are permissible.

Battles

Battles are fought using the Warhammer 40,000 7th edition rules. All codex and supplements are permissible. Point values are mutually agreed upon by the players. Forgeworld units are permissible (unless that unit has experimental rules, then it is banned). Super heavies and gargantuan monstrous creatures are not permitted. Mission and deployment are randomly generated as described in the warhammer rule book.

Armies must be battle forged (IE not unbound). An army’s primary detachment must be the primary faction the player selected and must contain their warlord (aka if taking a CAD and an ally, the primary faction must be the CAD). Army composition can be made up of no more than 2 sources. Examples of two sources include a CAD and an assassin detachment, a CAD and a CAD, an ork horde detachment and a green tide formation, or a CAD and an allied detachment.

Points level recommendations for a battle are as follows. Tiles worth 1 point, 1500 points or less. Tiles worth 3 points, 2000 points or less. Tiles worth 5 points, 2500 points or less. The different point levels is intended to give the large point value tiles a more epic battle.

In Battle Bonuses

During a battle, players can spend points earned on the campaign board for in game bonuses. These bonuses can be purchased at any time, but must be clearly declared by the player doing so. The spent points are removed form the players total points. The following is a list of options available for purchase.

1 point to re-roll any dice (limit 3 per player per battle)

3 points to increase or decrease reserve rolls by 1 for a game turn (This can be applied to the purchasing player or the opponent) (limit 1 per player per battle)

At the end of each round, each tile controlled by a player awards them 1 point. Tiles captured during this round are considered controlled by that player for points awarding purposes. Some tiles are worth more points and are marked as such.

Game Length and Victory

The game lasts 7 rounds. At the end of 7 rounds the player with the most points is declared the victor. Remember, points spent battles are subtracted from the players total.

That is it. My campaign system. My big concerns rules wise are the in game purchases. I am not sure if they will be to powerful and break the battles, hence I put a limit on them. I also want them to be useful, so you are tempted to spend those hard earned points. In terms of narrative development, I am sure there are some great stories that could come out of this. Alliances forming and breaking. Brides to keep enemies off your back. Epic battles that were swung on the last turn to your favor by the use of strategic resources to call in an orbital strike. That critical re roll of a failed invuln save to keep your character alive and carry the battle. Let me know what you think. Until then this is Severus saying have a good one and take it easy.